The molecular revolution has led to an explosion of phylogenetic research that has both confirmed many long-standing hypotheses as well as forcing us to rethink many others. A more recent, associated development is that of divergence-time estimation, resulting in so-called "timetrees". Whereas phylogenies can only present hypotheses of evolutionary relationships and character evolution, timetrees add an important temporal component to expand our research questions to include investigations of what historical events might have helped drive the evolution of a given structure or taxon. Although all divergence-time estimates are ultimately based on fossil information (including paleogeographic events), the coupling of these data with DNA sequence data has led to a much more comprehensive set of estimates, given that the fossil record alone can only date a subset of the nodes in a tree and often not as precisely as desired. Whereas molecular phylogenetics is well established in Germany, research into timetrees is in its comparative infancy with respect to both its methodological and applied, empirical aspects. Instead, much of the initiative in this area comes from outside of Germany. By presenting a symposium covering diverse aspects of timetrees, we hope to stimulate interest in this developing field of phylogenetics. [Information of the supplier]